Talk:Car phone/Archive 1

Sunset Boulevard (1950 film)
Just to point out that a "car phone" is noted in this film as a feature of an old fashioned (presumably 1920s/1930s) luxury car - furthermore it is not regarded as luxurious but not unique ("one of those car phones") Bwithh 02:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Similar point: "car phones" appeared to be commonplace in '50s cop shows (& movies)... So what were they, the Coketh Generation? Furthermore, Grun's Timetables of History (admittedly, not the most RS...) dates the first carphone to 1946...  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  10:16, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe the "car phone" of Sunset Boulevard was merely an intercom between the passenger and the limo driver. It might have even been a non-electric device like a voice tube.  Anyway, don't know about 50's cop shows, you might have been seeing police radios that had a telephone-style handset.  References to mobile phones do exist from that era, but that's referring to when things were first invented, not when service was rolled out.  At that point, they were essentially a two-way radio where a base operator would dial the number for you; don't know if they could ring the phone in the car.  It wasn't until into the 1960s that there were mobile phones that could dial, some with actual rotary dials.  Pre-cellular mobile phones were common in 1970s action and detective shows, but in real life there was a long waiting list and you had to be a big shot to get one. Squidfryerchef (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't rule out confusion over handset styles... I seem to recall, tho, calls being made to carphones that early. IIRC, there was a complicated procedure needing to go through the operator to get a mobile number. Could be it was later; it was true in the '70s, if in fact it hadn't just started.  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  19:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

My daughter asked me the question when car phones first came into being. I remembered that Sean Connery as James Bond used a car phone in the 1963 movie, "From Russia With Love." It was a 1935 Bentley with a cell phone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Easeltine (talk • contribs) 21:58, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Yet another article
And recklessly using idiotic British words. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.139.75.87 (talk) 14:05, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

What? For spelling the word color as "colour" instead of "color"? And why would doing so be "reckless" and "idiotic" as you say? You do realize that Wikipedia is a project with a global scope, so it's to be expected that non-American English spelling conventions will appear on articles simply because non-American English-speaking people contribute to them! I can read these articles fine with or without "idiotic British words". Seriously, get over it. (I realize I'm responding to a nearly four year old post, but this type of idiocy is still rampant, so I feel that it needs to be addressed.) 68.46.42.9 (talk) 10:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Teleaid - Mercedes-Benz redirect problem
Teleaid (which seems to be some sort of OnStar-like thing), linked within the article, currently redirects to Mercedes-Benz, but the Mercedes-Benz article makes no mention whatsoever of the word teleaid. This needs to be cleaned up somehow, but I'm not really sure where to start looking for good sources of what TeleAid/Teleaid/Tele Aid/Tele-Aid is. Inordinate (talk) 17:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a serious omission in this article - seen from my viewpoint
In Europe, until 2G included, we used to be able to get handheld phones (including GPRS modem) with an optional car-mount kit. Those who bought it and mounted it with - let's say - an external antenna, microphone plus speaker (and possibly also a handset) and a connection to the car's battery, had a full-fledged car phone, the moment they placed their handheld phone into the receptacle: The telephone was held, charged, calls were made via the external antenna (no radiation inside plus optimum link quality) and either the handset or in hands-free mode. And best of all, you could connect your laptop and surf the internet - though at the unsatisfyingly low speed that GPRS offered.

So we all looked forward to the new 3G models, that would solve the speed problem. But to our dismay, we then had to find out that these no longer come with a car-mount kit. It's one of those industry decisions where you get the impression, they take 2 steps forward and 3 back - and ask yourself: Why on earth... ?!?

Trying to talk to them is useless in today's CRM era. It is unclear why this decision was taken. Is it because this arrangement was unknown on the US market, and nowadays it's the US market that determines the range of products on other markets?

Or has 'the government' interfered, fearing that citizens with a fast mobile internet connection and a professional installation get 'too potentially powerful'?

I would suggest that someone interested in this issue add a chapter dealing with this aspect. I myself am not a Wikipedia member. I will probably send this same suggestion to the discussion page of the 'Mobile phone' article - or place a reference message there to this one.

Michael Laudahn —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.160.176 (talk) 16:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Legality of handheld devices
I feel like this section of the article posits information that is both poorly defended and much too broad. Primarily, the phrase, "In many countries, restricting cell phone use while driving is on an upward trend." and then we only have two sources of what appears to be local news articles from Nevada and Maryland. Citing two articles from what appears to be local news vendors detailing the circumstances in which you can be fined for cell phone isn't enough to say what the rest of the 48 state are doing, and certainly doesn't warrant the wording, "in many contries." Texting and driving is illegal most everywhere, but there remains variation on laws regarding phone-to-face talking. I'm going to take the liberty in cleaning up that last section, and welcome any discussion about it.Valine Buren (talk) 06:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Historical context
This article seems to lack a good section on what may have been the peak in the lifetime of the car phone. Shouldn't there at least be a paragraph (with some good visual) that explains that in the late eighties, roughly in the late days of the analog 1G standard, car phones started to become popular, got miniaturized quickly from the size of an actual brick to something that resembles what we now know as a mobile phone handset until, with the advent of (digital) 2G standards such as GSM, the mobile phone category essentially completely displaced the car phone? In fact, this word only lives on in now silly names like British retail chain Carphone Warehouse, where you'll be rather unlikely to find any car phone since, say, 25 years The Seventh Taylor (talk) 11:15, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

There are some good images here:    but the only one I can find on Wikimedia is this one  but that latter image does not really help the story. The Seventh Taylor (talk) 12:10, 10 May 2015 (UTC)